Legs

Trying to find a good leg workout. I've been using the leg press and lifting huge weights on it, but my knees don't feel too good afterwards, I want to eliminate the leg press from my routine altogether so I don't get tempted to lift huge on it again. I know squats and deadlifts are staple excercises for legs, but what else should I include, I'm not after mass on my quads, strength is more important rights now, but I do needs to build my hamstrings more so that my legs look balanced and then I can focus more on quad size after that. I need to increase my squat weight, but that will come with practice and good form.

Should I incorporate some type of lunges and/or split squats aswell? Also leg curls?

Flying lunges?? As in jump up (arms out to the sides) and swap legs in mid air landing back into the lunge position? Say 60 reps?? I dunno...

You should absolutely be doing leg curls as well as calf raises...



Arttie

You wanna get strong legs. Do what Arttie recommends also throw in there regular lunges. If Leg Press is giving your knees troubles throttle back on the weight. Don't worry about going heavy just being consistent is the key. The strength will come.

Romanian Deadlift or Straight Leg Deadlift (you can do these with a barbell or a dumbell)

Hack Squats

Bulgarian Split Squat

Lunges w/ barbell or dumbell

Glute Hamstring Raises

Any form of leg curls

Standing calf raises, seated calf raises

Squats, squats, and more squats-this is a power training staple, but don't overtrain. You don't need to and shouldn't go as heavy as you can every time or you'll wind up injured. Figure out your 1 rep max, and work off percentages such as 60% of your 1RM, 70%, 90% etc. You can also do what's called a widowmaker squat which is nothing but finding a challenging amount of weight and busting out 20 reps without racking the bar, great for burnout and stimulating growth.

I don't like using machines. While I do understand that at times they have their place during times of injury or to bring up a lagging part of the physique, machines should be used for accessory lifts only. Your core training should grounded upon basic barbell and dumbell lifts. Of the many benefits of this type of training, they include working multiple muscles at one time rather than strict isolation such as the deadlift where you stimulate your entire posterior chain, there is evidence that anabolic hormones such as HGH are naturally increased when fully working large muscle groups such as in the squat-thats why when guys start working their legs, often their arms and chest suddenly begin to get bigger too even though they haven't changed their upper body workout, etc.

A book that may help you develop a program for continually getting stronger: 5/3/1 for Powerlifting by Jim Wendler. You can find it in hard and e-copy. It's an excellent resource for smart and effective training for strength gains.

Split...I'm actually doing 5-3-1 now I'm on week 3 Cycle 2. It is a great program. And yes keep the machines to accessory only stick to moving the raw iron with plates and dumbbells. Yesterday was Squat day for me. My big lift was 165 for 25 reps.

That's very cool. A friend of mine who is a friend of and trains with Jim Wendler (I don't know him myself) recommended the book to me. Its definately solid stuff.